At the top of Daily Kos this evening, I was moved to see the diary of a former high school classmate rated at the top of the recommended list. Dante Zappala was an all time great cross-country team participant at Central, two years older than myself.

I'll let Dante explain himself:

I got a late afternoon call to do a segment on Hardball tonight with Chris Matthews. As the brother of a fallen soldier, I speak on behalf of Military Families Speak Out, and when the news cycles are right, when it fits the narrative, we get the make-up and the microphone--for a few fleeting moments, anyway.

The topic was Petraeus, and his admission that he doesn't know if the Iraq war has made us safer. That's not quite sincere, because we know the war has made us less safe. Still, the fact that something close to the truth was spoken on the Senate floor, to a Republican questioner, no less, is the sound bite Matthews ran with.

I wanted to talk about the humanity of this war. My brother died in Iraq. He died looking for WMD. He died because this country capitulated to fear, because the people in power were hell bent on an ideology, because the principles of reason were tossed for negligent policy.

Here is Dante on Hardball: